Syria: Dozens killed as army bombards Homs with mortar fire

The Syrian army bombarded the rebellious city of Homs with mortar fire in the
early hours of Saturday morning, killing more than two hundred people in
some of the most intense violence of the 10-month uprising.

Amateur video purports to show the Free Syrian Army exchanging gunfire with the Syrian Army as they take cover behind a tank. Photo: REUTERS

Hours before the UN Security council prepared to vote on the crisis, government troops began pounding the city with mortar rounds, crushing buildings and killing civilians in the street.

"The death toll is now at least 217 people killed in Homs, 138 of them killed in the Khalidiya district," a spokesman for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters.

Witnesses said the shelling began at around 8pm and continued throughout the night, with army forces targeting the neighborhoods of Bab Toudmor, Bab Dreib, and Karm el-Shami because of their links with rebel groups.

As is so often the case, news of the violence spread on Twitter and other social networks and YouTube was soon full of graphic videos purporting to show the victims of the withering mortar fire.

Al-Jazeera reported that the shelling was prompted by an attack on government troops by defectors from the army, who had begun setting up checkpoints in the city in an attempt to gain control.

The killings came at the end of a day in which thousands of protesters braved the streets to commemorate the 1982 massacre of civilians in the city of Hama.

Then-president Hafez al-Assad, the father Bashar al-Assad, the current ruler, flattened the city in an attempt to quell an uprising against his regime, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians.

At the United Nations headquarters in New York, diplomats were preparing to vote on a resolution aimed at ending the crisis.

Days of talks dragged on into the weekend after Russia initially refused to sign up to a watered down draft which removed references to the departure of President Bashar al-Assad

Russia's foreign ministry initially said the latest draft of the resolution was unacceptable, but held out hope that a tolerable version could yet be agreed.